Nor'easter's Great Effect On Vermont: Wonderful Sunrises, Sunsets

Vermont has had several awesome sunrises and sunsets this week. Oddly, it's all because of a nor'easter.

Cirrus clouds over St. Albans Wednesday, sent north
by a distant storm off the mid-Atlantic coast.
If you look closely you can see sort
of a rainbow feature in these clouds.  

We associate nor'easters with raw weather, rain, snow and thick clouds, not beautiful fair skies.

But nor'easters throw a lot of warm, moist air high into the sky and that warm air often spreads for long distances.

The warm air aloft from the nor'easter, hitting the cold upper atmosphere, forms thin cirrus clouds that often move hundreds of miles from the storm center.

The cirrus clouds are often are harbinger of a storm approaching your area. The clouds often mean wet or stormy weather is less than a day away.

Not this time. A nor'easter has been stalled off the Mid-Atlantic coast this week, and will stay there for a few days more. It's been sending pulses of those high thin cirrus clouds way north into Vermont, but the storm itself is not moving in our direction.

The sun can shine easily through these clouds, and  sunlight gets scattered by the cirrus clouds.  The clouds are made of ice crystals, that often act as prisms. During the day, you can sometimes see rainbow like features near the sun in the clouds. And you end up with those  beautiful reds, oranges and pinks we've seen as the sun rises and set this week.

While skies will become deep blue at times the next few days, there will be more areas of cirrus clouds moving into Vermont at times  from that nor'easter, so there's a chance of more wild sunsets.